Job 3:22
in Job 3who rejoice and greatly exult when they can find the grave?
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Who rejoice exceedingly, And are glad, when they can find the grave?
KJV
Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
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This verse in Job 3
Commentary
12 notes on this verseWhich rejoice exceedingly - Literally, They rejoice with joy, and exult when they find the grave. There is a various reading here in one of Kennicott’s MSS., which gives a different sense. Instead of who rejoice, אלי גיל eley gil, with Joy, it has אלי גל eley gal, who rejoice at the Tomb, and exult when they find the grave.
This site's exposition
Why is light given to the miserable
on Job 3:20-23
The words "whom God has hedged in" return Satan's word from 1:10 in the opposite sense, the protection the accuser envied becoming the prison. Barnes notes that the echo is the reader's alone to see, since Job never heard the word that opened the case against him.
This site's exposition
who rejoice and greatly exult when they can find the grave
Barnes notes that the Hebrew doubles the verb, so the miserable rejoice with joy when they find the grave. Clarke reports one manuscript that reads rejoice at the tomb, so the grave is the treasure of verse 21. Wesley calls such longing ungrateful to the Giver of life.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
In this way Job speaks of "those who long for death," but, he says, "it does not come." That is why the Preacher in Ecclesiastes says, "For everything there is a season" and, in another passage, "O death, how your memory is sweet." When you hear Job's wife suggesting to him, "Curse God, and die," you should not suppose that he did not answer because of his love of life but because of his piety. Indeed he who considered death to be very desirable and saw it as a real goodness when he was allowed to obtain it did not dare speak against God.
The Medieval Church3 voices
A person's actions are veiled and hidden by his death. God covers his way. The word covers means that God spares some afflictions through death, because the action of covering on God's part is an aid.
Because desire, when it is fulfilled causes joy, he adds, "and are glad powerfully when they find the grave," i.e. when they see they have arrived at death which procures a grave for them. Some think this passage refers to the fact that those who …
Which rejoice exceedingly and are glad, when they can find the grave. For as the grave is that place wherein the body is buried, so heavenly contemplation is a kind of spiritual grave wherein the soul is buried. For in a certain sense we still live to this world, when in spirit we roam abroad therein. But we are buried in the grave as dead, when being mortified in things without, we secrete ourselves in the depths of interior contemplation.
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
It was Job's folly and weakness to curse his day. We must say of it, This was his infirmity; but good men have sometimes failed in the exercise of those graces which they have been most eminent for, that we may understand that when they are said to be perfect it is meant that they were upright, not that they were sinless.
4 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
Bitterness of soul, through spiritual grievances, makes life itself bitter. Why doth he give light? (so it is in the original): he means God, yet does not name him, though the devil had said, "He will curse thee to thy face;" but he tacitly reflects on the divine Providence as unjust and unkind in continuing life when the comforts of life are removed.
Glad, &c. - To be thus impatient of life, for the sake of the trouble we meet with, is not only unnatural in itself, but ungrateful to the giver of life, and shews a sinful indulgence of our own passion.
Which rejoice exceedingly,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Which rejoice exceedingly - Hebrew “Who rejoice upon joy or exultation” (אל־גיל 'el-gı̂yl), that is, with exceedingly great joy. When they can find the grave - What an expression! How strikingly does it express the intense desire to die, and the depth of a man’s sorrow, when it becomes a matter of exultation for him to be permitted to lie down in the corruption and decay of the tomb! A somewhat similiar sentiment occurs in Euripides, as quoted by Cicero, Tusc. Quaest. Lib. 1, cap. 48: Nam nos decebat, doman Lugere, ubi esset aliquis in lucem editus, Humanae vitae varia reputantes mala; At qui labores morte finisset graves Hunc omni amicos laude et Lactitia exsequi.
The words behind it
7 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| הַשְּׂמֵחִ֥ים | hasemechim | the joyful [people] | H8056 → | |
| אֱלֵי־ | ʾelei- | to | H413 → | 5510 times |
| גִ֑יל | gil | rejoicing | H1524 → | |
| יָ֝שִׂ֗ישׂוּ | yasisu | they exult | H7797 → | |
| כִּ֣י | ki | if | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| יִמְצְאוּ־ | yimtzeu- | they find | H4672 → | 455 times |
| קָֽבֶר׃ | kaver | [the] grave | H6913 → | 67 times |
הַשְּׂמֵחִ֥יםthe joyful [people]
hasemechimH8056 →
אֱלֵי־to
ʾelei-H413 →5510 times
גִ֑ילrejoicing
gilH1524 →
יָ֝שִׂ֗ישׂוּthey exult
yasisuH7797 →
כִּ֣יif
kiH3588 →4482 times
יִמְצְאוּ־they find
yimtzeu-H4672 →455 times
קָֽבֶר׃[the] grave
kaverH6913 →67 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Job
This page draws on 12 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book V; Ishodad of Merv, COMMENTARY ON JOB 3:22; John Chrysostom, COMMENTARY ON JOB 3:20-23; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.